Gravity Scores Raves, Big Box-Office

Along with rave reviews across the board, Alfonso Cuaron’s space epic “Gravity” is looking to make a mint at the U.S. box-office this weekend.

Based on the strength of early Friday returns, it’s estimated that the sci-fi survival tale will rake in $45-50 million at the North American box-office.

It’s only new competition, the Affleck/Timberlake thriller “Runner Runner,” is expected to earn just $10-12 million over the weekend.

The film is pulling a 96/100 on Metacritic, making it the second best reviewed film of the year so far behind only “Inside Llewyn Davis” (two others on the list don’t qualify as they only scored 5 or less reviews so far).

On Rotten Tomatoes it’s pulling a 98% positive and a 9.1/10 average rating – the only other films to pull that high an average rating are cinematic classics like “The Third Man,” “Dr. Strangelove,” “Citizen Kane” and “The Godfather”.

Speaking of “Gravity,” the film has a companion short film entitled “Aningnaaq” by Alfonso’s brother Jonas Cuaron. That seven-minute short will be released as a DVD extra and deals with Inuit ice-fisherman on the other side of a radio call made within the film’s events.